Last Goodbyes
by Earendil Eldar
Summary: After the 456, Jack's life is utterly shattered. But still Ianto finds a way to help. Might be a bit of a weeper... sorry(ish).


Jack sat on the floor, his back against Ianto's side of the bed, holding Ianto's diary and trying to ignore the tears.

"You remember that nostrovite at Gwen's wedding? Yeah, how could you not?" Jack said softly. "Gwen told me it said something to her when it tried shifting into me…. 'You're not the only one who met someone that knocked their whole world out of kilter_.'_

"And that was true. But that pyschobitch of a nostrovite missed an important point. That's nostrovites for you, sometimes they slip up. Gwen… more of a surrogate, really. For Alice. I can't talk about that right now, though. And I wish I'd talked to you about it before.

"I wish I'd talked to you about a lot of things. So many times you said I could, you left that door open. Maybe it would have made you feel more comfortable, about _us_. I don't know. There were a million things that I _just didn't know_ when it came to us. And that scared me, so much.

"I know you were scared sometimes, too. You thought you were the only one for whom this thing was so new. You weren't. I may have had all kinds of relationships in my life, but I'd never had something like us. And now I know what it was. You were _the one_. The one who outshone them all. The one who will never be lived up to. The one I'll never really get over.

"With you… I felt so new again. Nothing made sense anymore. Everything I ever believed, I ever knew about love… gone. I'd never been less self-assured than I was with you. Every time I wanted to pour my heart out to you, I was sure I still saw your hesitation. Every time I consciously pulled back a bit, I was sure I saw your heart break a little.

"And now here I am, sitting on the floor of what, by the end, was our bedroom. Trust you to keep your diary under lock and key after that time you dropped it and I read that part about… what did it say, 'there's _no_ way that measurement is accurate.'

"I'm leaving soon, Yan. I need to be away for a while. This world just isn't big enough – you are everywhere I turn. Someone dresses like you and I have to leave the room for a moment. Someone wears your Issey Miyake cologne and I feel like I'm dying yet again. I walk by a crowd and swear I hear your voice…. I have never been like this. Sometimes when I'm alone I scream out loud, a few times I've resorted to throwing things because the frustration of _everything_ is too much.

"Everything I've been through… I always thought I could manage. I'd carry on. For the first time, I can't. If you only knew, Ianto… maybe then I could stand it. But I never had the words. The simplest ones, the ones that said it all, never felt like enough. The only consolation I have is that I was with you. You know… at the… end.

"You changed everything. You changed me. A life has never seemed so short, and now so long. The Universe wastes no mercy on me."

As Jack stood to go, an envelope fell from Ianto's diary. Picking it up and turning it over, Jack found his own name written on the front. His hands shook and he wasn't sure he could stand reading a letter Ianto never got around to giving him. But leaving it wasn't an option either. As Jack sliced it open with his finger a tiny device slipped out, some kind of USB. There was just a short note inside on Torchwood letterhead that Jack was sure they never used anymore. It said: "Plug it into my TV and watch. XO"

Jack walked unsteadily to the living room and inserted the drive into the slot on the side of the television (after the requisite two tries). It started up automatically, the picture filling with an image of Ianto at his desk in the archive room.

"Hello," Ianto said simply with a small smile. "So, obviously, I had the idea for this from Tosh, though I could never work out how to get it to go automatically after my final logout. Figured you might appreciate the quaintness anyway."

Ianto paused for a long breath. "Normally this is where I'd be asking if you're alright, but I'm not there to do that now. And I worry, maybe a bit egotistically, that you're not alright. Whatever happened, though, it wasn't your fault. I know you, sitting there now insisting that it was, that it always is. Well, it isn't, Jack. It's just Torchwood, we both know that. It was that way before either of us, and it'll be that way after… well, probably not after _you_, but you know what I mean."

Ianto paused again. "I want you to be alright. I want you to go on. The world needs you, Jack. Not to stroke your ego any more than necessary. But you know what the world is like. And there's something else as well. I knew. It wasn't always easy to remind myself, sometimes you really kept me guessing. But at day's end, I knew. Because I'd never have gone on with it if I didn't know, right from the beginning. And, more than anything, Jack… you made me happy. Happier than I've ever been… ever. No matter what we were doing – chasing down weevils, matching wits in the Hub (and I _always_ won at that), or falling asleep in each other's arms… I loved every bloody, mad second of it because it was you beside me.

"Thank you, Jack, for making my life finally worth it. I love you, very much, wherever I may be. 'Bye," Ianto said, bringing his fingers to his lips then holding them toward the camera with a smile.

For the next billion years, it was that smile Jack remembered whenever he thought of Ianto.


End file.
